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[Vibhor]

Oh my gosh, Psi was terribly OP in X-Com.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Psionics

It was just crap. Fun though.

And that is exactly why we need Psionics in the new one. We need to see an improved version of it. Yes it was OP as hell(5 man squad of psi operatives could take down cydonia) but that was the whole point. It needs to be harder to acquire and train and needs something more than just controlling and panicking.

[Dohon]

heniv over at the official forums has compiled all the information known so far about the game here. Might not be all new info, but handy to see it all in a glance.

GENERAL
PC version will have an "enhanced" UI compared to the console. [12]
Soldier customization, name, looks, voice, country [13, 14]
- Nicknames at Sergeant rank. [15]
Randomly generated mission names [20]

STRATEGICAL

Funding Council [9]
16 Countries, funding and resource bonuses varies [12, 16]
Trade & Missions continually [9]
Bonus for complete satellite coverage of continents. [16]

Missions
Mission types, (a "handful" of different types) [14]
- Terror missions
Story or "Set type" missions. [14]
Large number of hand-crafted maps. [20]
- Unit placement procedurally generated.

Base facilities [17]
Armory, soldier weapons, armour and equipment.
Barracks, hire soldiers, view status.
Infirmary
Officer Training School, global perk unlocks for squad.
Hangar
Mission Control
Situation Room, funding council management.
Engineering, weapons, armour & equipment manufacturing.
Workshop, boost Engineering, resource boost.
Foundry, big manufacturing projects.
Science Lab, research center.
Laboratories, boost Science Lab.
Thermal Power Station, bonus power station.


TACTICAL

Gameplay Mechanics
Fog of War [3,9]
Panic [9,12]
Cover, looks like three types [screenshots]
- Ability: "Hunker down", double defence, penalty to vision and cost one turn. [16]
Line of Sight [3,9]
Day and Night [9]
TUs replaced with Move-Action mechanics instead. [9,12,13]
Inventory grid page removed, replaced with an Ability Bar. [3, 14]
- Still some type of inventory "slots" pre-mission.
Critical Wounds, possible to revive but suffers permanent penalty to Will stat (panic). [14,15]
SHIV, Mobile Weapons Platform [13]
- Takes place of 1 soldier.
Destructible environments [10,12]
Overwatch [21]
Drops, 'gadgets and artefacts' [22]
- Weapons explode into weapon fragments [Video A at 4:06]

Aliens
4 types of aliens confirmed [7]
Sectoids
- Ability: Mind Merge, extra health (but can kill both aliens). [11]
Mutons
- Ability: Blood Call, group combat bonuses. [7]
Cyberdiscs
- Two forms [7, screenshots]
Thin Man (new alien type)
- High mobility, poison [7]
Berzerker (new alien type) [23]
- Muton like, Heavy armoured, Close combat
- Can destroy environments.
Alien "Hero" units, (psionic type hinted at) [14]


Soldiers
Squad size start at four and can later upgrade to six. [9,12,20]
Permanent death for soldiers [9]
Classes/Perks confirmed. [10,11]
Classes hidden until level up. [13]
Choice of two abilities on level up (exclusively) [13]

Classes
Sniper
- Ability: Squad Sight, fire at enemy seen by any in squad. [13]
- Ability: Snap Shot, quick shot after movement. [13]
- Improved Overwatch, unit turn does not 'end' as long as he keeps landing hits on aliens. [22]
Heavy
- Ability: Focused Suppression, reduce offence and free shot if move. [11]
- Ability: Tracer Beam Rounds, if hit alien takes extra damage from entire squad. [22]
Assault
- Ability: Run & Gun, double movement.
Support
- Ability: Smoke Grenade [14]
- Ability: Minor Suppression [14]
- Ability: Some type of Improved Heal [14]

Equipment
Sniper Rifles take full turn to fire. [12]
Skeleton Suit, grapple hook to get to higher ground. [11]
Grenades
- Frag
- Smoke, upgrade: stats enhancing drugs for soldiers inside. [22]
Battle Scanner, throw-able sight improvement mechanic. [14]
All soldiers can wear all types of items and armour. [14]
Laser Weapons [14]

[Robosaur]

In Enemy Unknown, I always preferred Laser Rifles to anything else because they were the weakness of the most powerful alien, no ammunition, really fast, and they did very little friendly fire damage to guys in power armor so you could just sit back and ignore that guy under constant alien control.

[Alastar]

IIRC Heavy Plasmas were more effective against Sectopods than Laser Rifles after resistance/weaknesses and armour were taken into account. Speed was also nothing special.

But I liked the ability to go full auto with no regard for ammunition and little for friendly fire incidents. Autocannons also did exactly the right damage, and were perfectly serviceable for light or smoke.

Friendly fire and psionics made me avoid overpowered weapons for most squad members in most missions.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Friendly fire and psionics made me avoid overpowered weapons for most squad members in most missions.

High Explosives, autocannons with HE ammo and rocket launchers for each man. NO. EXCEPTIONS.

[Criptfeind]

Indeed, you can not be ambushed well walking around a corner if there is no corner to begin with.

[Virex]

Indeed, you can not be ambushed well walking around a corner if there is no corner to begin with.

I hope there will actually be repercussions for blowing up the entire battlefield in the reboot though. Leveling an entire city block without even getting a meaningful slap on the wrist was and still is kind of silly.

[Aklyon]

You could ruin your score from killing all the civilians while doing that.

[Sowelu]

I liked Apocalypse for that.  Factions got pissed when you committed massive property damage (or civilian slaughter).

[nenjin]

It's also what gave terror assignments their real sting. It's hard enough surviving. It's even harder to save more than 1 or 2 civilians, and they totally hamper your ability to just start exploding buildings. Considering most games where rescues are on a timer, or you just have to walk to the spot to save them, X-Com really did them to the hilt and it made each mission just that much more dynamic. Hell, sometimes a civilian getting killed was just the tell you needed to show you where to start.

[Vibhor]

In Enemy Unknown, I always preferred Laser Rifles to anything else because they were the weakness of the most powerful alien, no ammunition, really fast, and they did very little friendly fire damage to guys in power armor so you could just sit back and ignore that guy under constant alien control.

Wait what?
The most powerful alien on the basis of combat skills was muton who took forever to die with lasers. Are we on the same page here?

[MarcAFK]

laser rifles were always my favorite since early game they were your best bet for taking down cyberdisks, reavers and bloody walls.
Also they're shiny.

[EuchreJack]

Gee, wow, a whole of six guys.  I think I'll stick to the original, thanks.

[MaximumZero]

*shrug* Maybe it'll help pick up the pace of combat a little bit? Sure, it was always exciting because of the horror factor, but it was just so damned slow.

[EuchreJack]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I didn't like 30 man teams much either.  But 6 is going too far in the wrong direction.  Now, if it started at 10, then moved to 15, I wouldn't be complaining at all.

I realize it sounds quite petty.  Basically, I want to send a medium-sized team to deal with the aliens, not an entire platoon and not a tiny elite team.  I'd like to know that an alien grenade can kill many of my men, but not all of them.  It's a balance thing, which I just think the developers have gotten wrong here.